MIT Dean Starts New University

MIT Dean Takes Leave to Start New University Without Lectures or Classrooms

Jeffrey R. Young | February 1, 2016

Christine Ortiz is taking a leave from her prestigious post as a professor and dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to start a radical, new nonprofit university that she says will have no majors, no lectures, and no classrooms.
Many details about the new university are still undetermined, she says, but the basic idea is to answer the question, What if you could start a university from scratch for today’s needs and with today’s technology?

MIT professor and dean for graduate education Christine Ortiz will begin a one-year leave at the end of this academic year, and she plans to use that time to found a new nonprofit research university with an entirely new model.

The Tech reports that Ortiz has put project-based learning at the center of the new institution, where lectures will not exist and the traditional degree system will go out the window.

Ortiz plans to give students latitude in their goals for their own educations, letting them decide the length of time necessary to complete projects that meet their learning expectations before they leave the yet-to-be-named institution she hopes to open in Massachusetts.

Source: http://www.educationdive.com/news/mit-professor-and-dean-launching-new-residential-university/412995/

<more at http://chronicle.com/article/MIT-Dean-Takes-Leave-to-Start/235121/; related links: http://chronicle.com/article/An-Idea-Too-Sensible-to-Try/135704/ (An Idea Too Sensible to Try, Until Now. November 11, 2002) and http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2013/11/24/moocs-move-beyond-the-perfect-media-narrative/ (MOOCs Move Beyond the Perfect Media Narrative. November 24, 2013)>